I was on another thread, forgive me, but I really cannot remember which one it was, but anyway, Hexpainter made an almost off the cuff comment about Heathens having a great dislike for Buckland and the Saxon Wicca lot, and it got me a bit curious.

I can guess as to why you folks would have problems here. I have my own problems with it, but I think they are unrelated. As I say, I can guess as to why you would have problems, but I don't think I can know for sure. So I created this thread for you to tell me. I have been getting more and more curious about reconstructionist religions, and I want to learn more, so I am here to ask you to tell me.

Please?

*wide eyed innocent smile* :D

Dark Energy. It can be found in the observable Universe. Found in ratios of 75% more than any other substance. Dark Energy. It can be found in religious extremists, in cheerleaders. To come to the conclusion that Dark signifies mean and malevolent would define 75% of the Universe as an evil force. Alternatively, to think that some cheerleaders don't have razors in their snatch is to be foolishly unarmed.

[QUOTE=sacrificialgoddess;43269]Okay, guys. I hope this is the appropriate place for this.

I was on another thread, forgive me, but I really cannot remember which one it was, but anyway, Hexpainter made an almost off the cuff comment about Heathens having a great dislike for Buckland and the Saxon Wicca lot, and it got me a bit curious.

I can guess as to why you folks would have problems here. I have my own problems with it, but I think they are unrelated. As I say, I can guess as to why you would have problems, but I don't think I can know for sure. So I created this thread for you to tell me. I have been getting more and more curious about reconstructionist religions, and I want to learn more, so I am here to ask you to tell me.

Please?

*wide eyed innocent smile* :D[/QUOTE]

Ah yes, Wiccatru.
The only problem that most Heathens have is when people wish to take thier Wiccan path and dress it up with Asatru names, and pretend it is the same. It is not.

Heathenry is a folkway more than a faith, and it is not the same as Wicca, and certainly its practice is different. There are some magical traditions inside the faith, but it is not central to it, and ours is generally not an initiatory tradition. We don't dance around naked (except for recreation), our blades have edges and good serviceable points. Lastly and possibly most importantly, the gods to us are real named beings. They are distict and are honoured both collectively and seperatly in a community that contains followers of many paths from many of the gods, both solid pantheists, and those sworn to a single patron. We get all kinds of bent out of shape when someone starts turning our gods into male/female aspects of one divinity, or mixing and matching the gods with foreign pantheons.

Wicca has a tendency to include a lot of modern thought into the mix, borrowing from many other faiths into a hightly ecclectic mix. Nothing against Wicca, as I have been known to participate in some of their rituals, but I do not confuse it with my own faith.

Don't worry, we get just as bent at each other when we debate our seperate takes on the faith. As it was a tribal faith, celebrated by many tribes over many centuries, there are many, many different branches of the same great tree, all sharing the same sacral root. We just love sitting in the branches chucking spears at each other.

I was on another thread, forgive me, but I really cannot remember which one it was, but anyway, Hexpainter made an almost off the cuff comment about Heathens having a great dislike for Buckland and the Saxon Wicca lot, and it got me a bit curious.

I can guess as to why you folks would have problems here. I have my own problems with it, but I think they are unrelated. As I say, I can guess as to why you would have problems, but I don't think I can know for sure. So I created this thread for you to tell me. I have been getting more and more curious about reconstructionist religions, and I want to learn more, so I am here to ask you to tell me.

Please?

*wide eyed innocent smile* :D

Problems? Us? :eek:

Well, I guess my first issue is, and always will be, that the Saxons didn't practice Wicca and didn't celebrate as Wiccans did. Secondly, things like the Wiccan Rede are antithetical to much of the Germanic belief system. Third, he's including Celtic holidays in a book on Seax Wicca. Because... why? Fourth, another big issue, one does not call our gods, or use them in a ritual, or summon their energies or treat them like gigantic cosmic batteries. Ugh. Fifth, Fluffy McWiccans with Horned Helmets. 'Nuff said. Sixth, because Buckland isn't the most careful person about scholarship. Cough. Seventh, because every time I hear someone describing Woden and Loki as different aspects of the Lord I want to make them diediediediediedie. Eighth, a bunch of other reasons, DJ Conway among them, but they escape me at the moment.

"Wiccatru" is like a hollywood reproduction of Norse Germanic reconstructionism; like all hollywood productions, Its a lot of useliess fluffy unrelated crap wrapped around a very few elements grounded in reality, which have also been butchered beyond recognition.

Many Asatruar are not "religious" and don't go around talking about the Gods as if they have "a personal relationship with Odin and Freyr". For many, Agnostic and even Athiest, Asatru is the reconstruction of an ethnic heritage, our cultural heritage that was destroyed so long ago by the invasion of a foreign religion and the culture it brought with it. That is why Asatru, or reconstructionism is also known by other names like Forn Sed (The Old Way) or Die Sitte (The Custom). For these, obersrving the traditions of honoring the Gods, wether they literally believe in them or not, is simply another way of honoring the ancestors. I am one of these. Also, for many (I would almost say "most") Asatruar, "magic" plays zero role.

Wicca and it's offshoots are a new age (i.e. HIPPY) phenomena - talk to a bunch of wiccans, it won't be long before one of them says some crap about free love and how non-monogomous relationships are ok and you "shouldn't judge" and you should be a vegetarian and a pacifist, and all this other crap our ancestors would have found as repugnant as I do. Dreamy eyed, pie in the sky, "I talked to the Gods" or "The Gods came to me in a dream", or "I did some magic" blah blah whatever.

On the other hand, alot of reconstructionists are gun toting meat eaters, often rural folk- farmers, ranchers. Many hunt. In fact, you sort of have to be a meat eater, because it'stradition to sacrafice a goat or pig at a blot, and many actually do such sacrifices.